


The Gang Goes to Folsom

by sierra_roe



Series: Bream on BDSM [1]
Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: And I'm not sorry, BDSM, Crack, Gen, Humor, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, dinfoyle banter, laurie not understanding why she surprises people, like half this fic is me dunking on doms in utilikilts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 21:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22324372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sierra_roe/pseuds/sierra_roe
Summary: In search of an LGBT diversity hire, the Pied Piper gang heads to the Folsom Street Fair, San Francisco’s famous kink and leather event.Also, Laurie Bream is there. Wait what?
Series: Bream on BDSM [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630285
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	The Gang Goes to Folsom

**Author's Note:**

> Truly the tech world reality is stranger than fiction and this entire piece was inspired by a photo I saw on LinkedIn (really!) of a guy at a tech conference presenting while wearing a leather shoulder harness. I'm sorry / you're welcome for this ridiculous scenario that i got stuck in my head and had to write about.

The crew is gathered in one of the glass-walled conference rooms in the Pied Piper offices. Jared stands by the screen at the front of the room with his hands clasped. “Good morning everyone. Thank you for coming,” he says.

“What is this meeting about again, Jared?” Richard, as usual, looks annoyed that Jared’s pulled him away from the code he was working on. 

“Well Richard, as I’m sure you know, diversity in tech is a hot topic at the moment, and I’d like us to brainstorm some ways we can increase the diversity of our hiring pool.”

“We’ve got diversity. Just look at Dinesh.” Gilfoyle says. 

Dinesh rolls his eyes. 

“Well, yes, with all due respect to Dinesh, there are many types of diversity, and we need to consider diversity beyond males from the Asian subcontinent,” Jared nods. "As I was perusing Linkedin late last night while enjoying a refreshing sparkling water, I came across this video.” He presses play on his laptop and a video starts up on the screen. 

The video begins with a quick title sequence: LGBT Representation in Tech, then cuts to an excerpt from a conference talk on the subject. The male speaker is dressed in a crisp light blue collared shirt paired with a leather shoulder harness. 

“Great look for when you need to go straight from your funding round to Folsom” Gilfoyle snorts. 

“What’s Folsom?” Dinesh asks.

“Seriously? I didn’t think you were that fresh off the boat.”

“Now, Gilfoyle, that’s the kind of language we need to be careful of now that we’re a growing company.” Jared helpfully reminds him. “But, please enlighten us.”

“Okay, I’m surprised that you’ve all lived in the Bay Area for this long and I still have to explain this, but the Folsom Street Fair is a huge annual event for the kink and gay community.” Gilfoyle looks around at a lot of blank faces. "Seriously, none of you knew that? Man, you guys really need to get out more.”

“Gilfoyle brings up a great point.” Jared says with sincerity. "As a group of, if you’ll allow me to presume, entirely heterosexual men, we are not even qualified to know what it is we don’t know.” 

“Okay, so what do you suggest we do, Jared?” Richard shrugs defensively, “Go recruit our employees at Pride? That’s not until June.” 

“Folsom’s next week.” Gilfoyle says.

“Why do you know so much about this?” Dinesh asks.

Gilfoye is unfazed. “I know lots of things. More than you, that’s for sure.” 

Jared is delighted by the suggestion. “You know, I think that’s a great idea. We can all go to Folsom. We’ll make a team outing out of it! I think it’ll be a great opportunity for us all to learn about a new culture.”

“Jared, you can’t be serious…” Richard says.

\--------- Next week, at Folsom…--------- 

“What are you _wearing?_ Is that a _skirt?”_ Dinesh practically shrieks when he sees Gilfoyle.

“It’s a utilikilt, you uneducated savage.”

Gilfoyle has paired his utilikilt with boots and a black 2016 Anton LaVey Fun Run t-shirt. His utilikilt has a lot of pockets. 

The gang is standing in a milling crowd of people of all genders dressed in their best fetish wear and in various states of undress. Apart from Gilfoyle, everyone else has shown up dressed for just another day at the office. Richard wipes nervous sweat off his top lip and looks around, gulping. “You guys… does anyone else feel like we look a little out of place here?”

“Nonsense. You fit right in. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll meet a girl who has a kink for moist coders with pitstains and a monitor tan.” Gilfoyle deadpans.

“Wait, are there really girls with kinks for coders?” Dinesh asks hopefully.

“If there were, they wouldn’t need to come to Folsom to find it when they’ve got the entire Bay Area at their disposal, now would they?” Gilfoyle retorts. 

Jared starts passing out the water bottles and informational packets he’s brought with him. “I’ve been reading up on Folsom, so here are some ground rules that I laid out in these packets. Don’t touch or take pictures without consent. Try to network but don’t force it on anyone. Stay hydrated. And, gang, let’s have fun! I think today is going to be really eye opening for all of us.” He smiles brightly.

Looking for some place to point his eyes other than at the half-naked people around him, Richard buries his face in the custom informational packet that Jared’s compiled and had spiral-bound at Kinko’s. (Jared could have had it done at Staples, but he liked the implied pun, a fact that no one noticed or appreciated except him.) 

Choosing an event from the program at random, Richard blurts out in a voice louder than he intended, “Oh, I see that there’s a, uh, spanking demonstration starting in 10 minutes. Shall we?” 

As the Pied Piper team starts walking towards the nearby demonstration area, Dinesh suddenly stops. “Holy shit, is that…”

“Laurie fucking Bream.” Gilfoyle completes his thought.

The group turns to look. Laurie, wearing a leather dress and tall stiletto boots, is riding in a small chariot being pulled by two shirtless men wearing blinders, bits, and hoof-like boots. She’s tapping them lightly with her riding crop and holding onto a set of reins. She notices the Pied Piper team and pulls back on the reins, directing her ponyboys to pull over. 

“Laurie, what are you doing here?” Richard asks.

“I am exercising Benjamin and Frank, my ponyboys. I should have thought that was obvious.” She turns to Gilfoyle, "Ah, Bertram, I see that you and Dinesh are finally out of the closet. My congratulations.”

“No, Laurie, we’re just here to network and recruit people from the LGBT community” Richard tries to correct her. 

“Richard, I am surprised. To be frank, you struck me as the type of person who would be a regular at Folsom. I would not expect it to be your first time here.” Laurie steps out of her chariot. “Richard, if you are so inclined, I would be happy to show you around the fair.”

Richard opens his mouth, but he can’t manage to get any words out.

“You two go ahead,” Jared reassuringly puts his hand on Richard’s shoulder, “I’ll get started with some recruitment and catch up with you later. Don’t forget to stay hydrated!"

* * *

Dinesh and Gilfoyle watch Laurie leave with a confused Richard. 

“I never thought I’d have so much in common with Laurie Bream.” Gilfoyle says approvingly. 

“What?” Dinesh can’t get his head around it.

A man with an unkempt beard, also dressed in a utilikit, and walking a topless woman on a leash, approaches them. 

“Excuse me,” the man says, “I couldn’t help but notice your t-shirt. Are you a member of the Church of Satan?”

“Yes,” says Gilfoyle.

“I am as well, my friend! I was wondering if perhaps you would be interested in having our subs engage in a ritualistic magik scene.”

“… my… sub.” Gilfoyle is confused for a second before he realizes who the man is referring to.

“What???” says Dinesh, mildly panicked. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I misread your dynamic?” the man says, “are you just boyfriends? I thought you looked like a power exchange couple.”

“He may give off the vibes of a sub, but this man is unfortunately nothing but my coworker.” Gilfoyle tells him.

“My bad!” The man departs with his sub, looking slightly embarrassed.

“What did you mean, unfortunately??? What’s unfortunately supposed to mean?”

“Relax, subbie, I clearly meant it’s only unfortunate we work together because you’re so bad at coding.”

_“Subbie??”_

“Look on the bright side: at least you didn’t have to suffer the racial implications of him thinking you were my slave."

* * *

“Excuse me, do you fellows work in tech by any chance?” Jared asks a group of men in black clothing. Some of them are carrying water bottles with tech company logos. 

They all nod.

“Would you have a moment to talk about Pied Piper?”

“Sorry, we’re not religious."

“Oh no," Jared laughs, “It’s a startup.”

“Sorry man, AWS has already got me lined up for an interview,” one of the men points. Across the street, and interspersed with vendors selling rope and handcrafted leather restraints, is a line of recruiting booths for Amazon Web Services, Google, Facebook, and a handful of trendy startups. Jared silently curses himself for not planning ahead to get a Pied Piper booth. He frowns and continues circulating in the crowd. 

* * *

Richard and Laurie stand watching a flogging demonstration. 

“Laurie, what are we doing here?” Richard asks.

“You tell me, Richard. I did not force you to attend Folsom, nor have any role in it whatsoever. I merely saw you in the crowd, and thought it would be an opportune time for us to connect, person to person.” She pauses, “I have been reading a book that says that it can be strategically beneficial to find common ground with people you work with by bonding over shared interests.”

“No, but Laurie, I mean, this isn’t an interest for me."

“Hm.” Laurie says, mildly taken aback, “I find that quite hard to believe, Richard. You have all the traits of someone who would enjoy, dare I say benefit from, the cathartic release of BDSM play. If you are interested in the topic, I host a weekly podcast on the subject, Bream on BDSM.”

“I – what? You host a BDSM podcast?”

“Yes,” Laurie says as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, "In particular, neurotic types such as yourself frequently enjoy the feeling of relief that may occur upon production of pain-released endorphins. Have you ever been flogged, Richard?”

Fortunately this line of questioning is interrupted by Jared, who’s found them again.

“Jared!” Richard says with relief, “Any luck with the recruiting?"

“I did get the contact info of several men, but I am unsure if they are interested in jobs as coders,” Jared pauses, “What does ABDL mean?"

“Adult babies and diaper lovers,” Laurie helpfully supplies. “Jared, I was just telling Richard that I think he could benefit from receiving some impact play such as flogging.”

“Richard,” Jared says, “You know that all you had to do was ask. I’d be more than happy to help you out with whatever you need, day or night.”

“What??” Richard feels things spiraling beyond his control, “I have to get out of here. Jared, let’s go find Dinesh and Gilfoyle."

* * *

“Did you have a good time with Laurie?” Gilfoyle smirks when he sees Richard, “Tell me you’ve learned how to pull a pony cart.”

“You guys, I think we should get out of here. Recruiting is not going well, to put it lightly.” Richard is sweating a lot, and noting the locations of nearby trash bins in case his nerves start to go to his stomach. 

“You guys, people keep thinking that Gilfoyle is my dom!” Dinesh can’t help but share his outrage.

“And I wonder why that is.” Gilfoyle says smugly. 

“Our Lyft should be here in a few minutes.” Jared says. He whispers into Richard’s ear as he points to the Valley Flog Leathers booth next to the google recruitment tent. “Richard, there’s still time for you to pick out a flogger, if you’d like.”


End file.
